Monday, April 21, 2008

Sweet Potato, Coconut Milk & Palm Sugar Muffin (Muffin Kolak Ubi)

Finally! I've baked something out of these adorable little sweet potatoes! I've always been a big fan of sweet potatoes.

However, growing up in Indonesia, my family tried to brainwash me with the phrase "gendheng mangan telo".Loosely translated or misinterpreted:- If you're stupid, you'll always eat sweet potato or- You ARE stupid, therefore you eat sweet potatoes or-Since you eat sweet potatoes, you must be stupid or- Eat sweet potatoes, you stupid! or...all of the aboveSometimes, when you want to call someone stupid, you can just say "TELO!" (it's Javanese, pronounced as: tay-law!)

Basically, sweet potatoes are considered the food for the poor, as it was cheap. Little did they know that now there are premium Japanese sweet potatoes sold in luxury supermarkets such as SOGO LOL!So when I came across this bag of little cutie pies, I just grab 'em. They are HK$10 a bag. I always wanted to bake something, so I turned the classic Indonesian Kolak Ubi/Kolak Telo (Sweet potatoes in Coconut Milk & Palm Sugar) dessert recipe into muffins. Wait a minute. Why is my muffin this shape? Yep! I don't have a cupcake/muffin tray yet (I plan to get one soon) ^_^ hihihiFresh from the oven!See the bits of chewy sweet potatoes all over hehehe

Peel skin off the sweet potatoes, cut into small pieces, wash until the water runs clear, boil until soft, mash with fork/spoon or throw into food processor, leave some lumps for texture. Preheat oven 175C. Over hot water, heat up coconut milk, mix the palm sugar, and pandan leaves until the palm sugar's dissolved, remove pandan leaves. Mix beaten eggs, melted butter, and coconut milk, mix well. Sift self raising flour, add granulated sugar and salt, mix, create a well in the middle, pour the liquid in, add the mashed sweet potatoes, mix well with a whisk. Butter muffin tray (or I used aluminium cake mold), pour the batter up to 3/4 full, bake for around 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes clean.

I love love love sweet potatoes -- they are so good for you, too. Fortunately they're very easy to come by in this part of New England, and we often substitute for butternut squash (also easy to come by) in baked dishes and stews.

yo joe...hehehe yeah it is borderline cake i guess (i looked up the diff between muffin and cake finally)...now...lemme drip liquid palm sugar all over u...(then drop u off an ants nest hohoho-how meannnnn of me)

hi peter and noble pig...u guys are right! this would be perfect with my morning coffee! how cud i forget my caffein lifeline support lol

hi tigerfish..i guess tat'd make both of us....SUPER SMART wahahaha

hi lydia...i love butternut squash too! so rich and creamy...especially roasted...aren't we lucky the food we like is good for us? hehe

hi taste memory, i think sweet potatoes are so underutilised in hong kong...lemme try to do more things with em